When comparing Planar Helium PCT2785 vs LG 38UC99-W, the Slant community recommends Planar Helium PCT2785 for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?”Planar Helium PCT2785 is ranked 22nd while LG 38UC99-W is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Planar Helium PCT2785 is:

This monitor has many peripherals built-in, and unless you use them heavily they will do the job just fine. Unless you feel the need for dedicated hardware, the built-in stereo speakers work well enough, and the webcam and mic are acceptable quality for occasional recreational use (for business calls or other uses where quality is important, you'll want to upgrade to dedicated hardware).

Pros

Pro

Built-in speakers, webcam, and mic

This monitor has many peripherals built-in, and unless you use them heavily they will do the job just fine. Unless you feel the need for dedicated hardware, the built-in stereo speakers work well enough, and the webcam and mic are acceptable quality for occasional recreational use (for business calls or other uses where quality is important, you'll want to upgrade to dedicated hardware).

Pro

'Massive tablet' design is unique, and versitile

It really does look like a massive tablet with a kickstand - but that's not a bad thing. There's no stand visible, leaving the front looking very clean. The stand can angle anywhere from 15-70 degrees which allows for flexible use, or it can be folded in and used flat on the desk or even mounted using the VESA mounting holes.

Pro

Decent black levels, good contrast ratio

The black levels are respectively low at 0.16cd/m², which helps the contrast ratio achieve 1100:1 which is much lower than the advertised 5000:1, but still quite good.

Pro

Pretty fast response times make the system feel quick

The response time is 12ms, which isn't lightning fast, but it's still quick enough to make the system feel more responsive than cheaper monitors. While not fast enough for high-level gaming, this monitor won't make your system feel slow or unresponsive.

Excellent general purpose monitor

Pro

Great picture quality

Only the best monitors can match the LG 38UC99-W's contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma, and color accuracy, as the monitor features one of the finest IPS panels in the industry.

The LG 38UC99-W displays beautiful pictures, with deep and rich blacks, vibrant and accurate colors, and good-looking intermediate tones. Despite the fact that the monitor's native contrast ratio is only 1000:1, the dark scenes look deep and intense as the backlight of the 38UC99-W can drop below the brightness level of 0.15 nits, which only the best monitors can do. Colors pop and look vivid, as the 38UC99-W can sustain its brightness above the 300 nits mark. The mid-tones look lifelike thanks to the monitor's near perfect gamma value, which is only 1.3% off from the ideal value.

Moreover, the monitor's color inaccuracies can't be seen by the human eye because it only has an average color error dE of 2.12.

Pro

Exceptional connectivity

This monitor beats most of its premium competitors in terms of connectivity because it features a USB-C downstream port which has multiple parallel functions. First, you can use it to access the monitor's onboard USB hub. Second, it can be used for charging a USB type C compliant laptop. Finally, you can use it to receive video and audio signal from a computer.

Additionally, the LG 38UC99-W has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and an inbuilt Bluetooth module.

Pro

Supports dual linkup

You can connect this monitor to two computers so that each machine use half of the on-screen area. This might come in handy for those who frequently use a stationary desktop computer and a laptop.

Pro

Has a pair of good speakers

The LG 38UC99-W features a built-in 20 Watt stereo speaker system which sounds fairly well compared to the 4-10 W speakers the competitors at this price point offer.

Pro

Supports 85W charging over USB-C

You can charge your laptop and have display output through a single cable thanks to the monitor's USB-C port.

Pro

Features On-Screen controls

You can access all the general features of this monitor using your mouse and a keyboard thanks to the LG’s On-Screen Control software.

Additionally, the On-Screen Control offers many screen split presets.

Pro

Perfect for multi-tasking

Having enough display real-estate to fit three vertically aligned Google Docs windows comfortably, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent tool to boost up the productivity in everyday office duties, CAD/CAM applications, and many other fields.

Pro

Excellent for watching movies

Acing the near-cinematic aspect ratio of 21:9, the LG 38UC99-W is an excellent companion to watch movies because you won't see the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching most movies.

Cons

Con

Dim display

The display doesn't get very bright - at just 172cd/m² this panel is very dim. Many monitors can achieve 300cd/m² or higher brightnesses.

Con

Takes much more power than similar monitors

Without using the ECO mode, this monitor requires about 50 watts to power it. This is double than other monitors. There are different levels of ECO modes, however these dim the display and barely get down to the power level of other monitors when they are all enabled.

Con

Disappointing color accuracy

The MVA panel (multi-domain vertical alignment: in-between of TN and IPS technologies) doesn't reproduce colors very accurately. It scores just 82% of the sRGB color gamut, while other panels offer high 80s and even above 90%. This display's weakest points are with the green and cyan shades, while reds and blues appeared just fine.

Con

Very expensive

For the same price as this monitor, you can buy three decent 27-inch ultrawide monitors.

Con

Bluetooth indicator is inconvenient

The monitor's Bluetooth indicator occupies the on-screen workspace. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove the indicator while using the Bluetooth speaker option.

Con

Unsuitable for gaming

Gaming just doesn't feel responsive because of the monitor's massive input lag.

Con

OSD is quite messy

The on-screen-display of the LG 38UC99-W does not have any programmable shortcut keys and is quite hard to navigate.

For example, to enable or disable the motion blur reduction feature, you’ll need to press more than 15 keys because the menu goes very deep.

Con

Wobbly

The stand isn't rigid, so you might observe some minor wobbling if your work desk is flimsy,

Con

Has an external power brick

The external power supply unit of the LG 38UC99-W might cause inconvenience especially if you want to mount this monitor on a wall since the PSU is quite bulky.

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